An open platform for all Aotearoa New Zealand designers to have a voice and be heard

An open platform for Aotearoa New Zealand designers to have a voice

Nau mai, haere mai, ki te whānau … welcome to Designers Speak (Up), an open and democratic platform for all designers in Aotearoa New Zealand to have a voice and be heard in a common space.

The decision to launch a blog has come out of a unanimously supportive social media response to three posters (Power in the Poster: 43 Black Pins, 40 men, 3 women). The posters gathered the attention of the design community to the Designers Institute of New Zealand’s failure over two decades to address a significant gender imbalance. The objective of the posters is to encourage meaningful change, not only to gender imbalance throughout the Institute’s processes, but to have those processes embrace cultural diversity too.

To kick-start a kōrero available to everyone, several of us with the appetite have set up Designers Speak (Up) as a platform to involve the entire design community to help the Institute and wider industry be continually aware of historic and real-time issues and concerns.

With the many passionate design voices out there, from students, teachers, emerging designers to late-career, Designers Speak (Up) aims to be a place to be heard fair and square, publicly or anonymously.

We welcome opinion, constructive comment, critical dialogue and debate, in English and te reo Māori. We will also invite contributions. The blog will be moderated by a small yet diverse group of supporters.

Join in, have your say, again publicly or anonymously, make your contribution, and lead the way to a vibrant and inclusive design future for Aotearoa New Zealand.

Thank you

To everyone who has supported the kaupapa, encouraged and advised, and helped to set up this common space — thank you very much, whakawhetai atu ki a koutou katoa.

A note on tone

Designers Speak (Up) is a respectful and harassment-free space. We welcome opinion, constructive comment, critical dialogue and debate. We reserve the right to delete any comments submitted to this blog without notice due to spam or questionable spam, profanity or vulgar language, language or concepts that could be deemed offensive, hate speech, credible threats, or direct attacks on an individual or group, and unnecessary negativity.